Last week, I sat in an auditorium listening to a speaker declare that the ultimate purpose of life is happiness. The room nodded along. In that moment, something in me refused to agree.
When the microphone reached my hand, I heard myself say, “I am not seeking happiness. I am seeking wholeness.”
For me, this line is not a provocation. It is the centre of my work as a life coach and the way I try to live my own life. Happiness is overrated. Wholeness is underestimated.
The Problem With Making Happiness The Goal
We live in a culture that treats happiness like a report card. If you are not cheerful, productive and “positive”, something must be wrong with you.
Psychologically, this is costly. When you are trained to aim only for pleasant emotions, you start to fear the uncomfortable ones. Anxiety, grief, jealousy and shame are treated like enemies that must be beaten, not signals that must be decoded.
Families want to see you “settled” and smiling. Social media wants you to look “blessed”. Corporates want you motivated and “resilient” every day. Somewhere in the middle, your inner world stops feeling safe.
What I Really Meant By “I Am Seeking Wholeness”
When I told that speaker I am seeking wholeness, this is what I meant:
I am not seeking happiness. I am seeking wholeness. It means you are no longer chasing the highs, the temporary bursts of pleasure, success or validation that fade as quickly as they come. Wholeness is different. It is about integration. It is the courage to face your pain, your contradictions, your regrets and still see yourself as complete. When you seek wholeness, you stop dividing your life into “good” and “bad”, “success” and “failure”. You begin to allow everything to belong, the heartbreak and the healing, the confusion and the clarity. Happiness often depends on circumstances; wholeness grows from acceptance. It is not about feeling good all the time, it is about being real all the time.
Seeking wholeness does not mean rejecting joy. It means refusing to build your identity on it. Joy becomes a guest you welcome, not a god you worship.
In psychological language, wholeness is integration of the self. You do not amputate the parts of you that are wounded, insecure or ashamed. You bring them into the light, listen to them and slowly teach them they belong. I see this again and again with clients, and in my own life.
The Inner Civil War We Call “Being Strong”
Let me ask you something. When you feel insecure, angry or jealous, what is the first thing you tell yourself?
Across my coaching conversations in India and Mauritius, I hear the same lines again and again. “I should not feel this way.” “I am being silly.” “I should be stronger.” That “should” is the sound of an inner civil war. One part of you is feeling something raw. Another part is standing over it with a stick, barking orders. You may call this discipline or “tough love”. Your nervous system hears only rejection.
Seeking wholeness invites you to end that war. Instead of saying, “I should not feel this”, you ask, “What is this feeling trying to tell me about my needs, my boundaries or my unhealed pain”
A coachee in Mumbai once told me, “If I let myself feel sad, I will never stop crying.” She had been holding herself together for years. When she finally allowed the sadness to surface, she did cry, deeply. She did not fall apart. She became more whole. Her tears were not a failure. They were a completion.
Wholeness Is Relational, Not A Solo Project
Happiness, as it is usually sold to us, is individualistic. My goals. My success. My joy.
Wholeness is relational. It recognises that you cannot be whole in isolation. You are shaped in relationships, hurt in relationships and often healed in relationships.
In my work with couples, teams and leaders, what looks like a personal flaw is very often a relational wound. A harsh parent, a shaming teacher, a humiliating boss. When someone says, “I am too sensitive” or “I overreact”, there is usually a story behind that sentence.
When you are seeking wholeness, you stop asking only, “Am I happy” and start asking, “Am I honest in my relationships Are my connections real or are they performances Are my boundaries clear or are they blurred by guilt and people pleasing”
This is uncomfortable in cultures like ours. We grow up in strong families, tight communities and layered expectations. It is tempting to keep peace on the surface and chaos inside. Seeking wholeness asks you to flip that. It invites you to create more honesty within yourself so that the peace outside is no longer fake.
From Self Improvement To Self Integration
Modern self help tells you to become a “better version” of yourself. It easily becomes another race. More habits, more hacks, more upgrades. You turn into a never ending project.
Seeking wholeness offers a different movement. Less improvement, more integration.
Instead of asking, “How do I fix myself”, you begin to ask, “How do I include more of myself with wisdom” You stop trying to become a different person and start learning how to live as the person you already are, with more awareness and responsibility.
You still change. The difference is that your change is rooted in respect, not self hatred. You grow because you are worthy, not because you are unworthy. This is the kind of growth that lasts, because it is not powered by shame.
Practising Wholeness In Daily Life
So what does seeking wholeness look like on an ordinary day
It can look like noticing that you feel low and choosing not to hide it behind a fake smile, at least with one trusted person. It can look like telling your partner, “I felt insecure when that happened”, instead of starting a fight about something unrelated. It can look like bringing your sadness, confusion or anger into therapy or coaching, instead of burying it under work, food, alcohol or endless scrolling.
It can also look like a simple question at night. Not “Was I happy today” but “Was I real today Did I honour my inner truth, even in one small way”
Seeking wholeness is rarely glamorous. Most of the time, it is a quiet choice to stay with your discomfort for a few minutes longer than you did last week. Over time, your nervous system starts to trust you. You still feel the full range of human emotions, but you are no longer terrified of them.
A Quiet Revolution In India And Mauritius
I disagreed with that speaker last week, but I am grateful for the moment. It reminded me how deeply our world is still addicted to chasing happiness, and how radical it can be to say, “I am seeking wholeness instead.”
In a results obsessed, comparison heavy culture, choosing wholeness is a quiet revolution. You give yourself permission to be a full human being, not a carefully edited highlight reel. You do not have to be happy all the time. You are allowed to be whole instead.
Start where you are. Feel what you feel. Bring more of yourself into the light. The goal is not a constant high. The goal is a grounded, honest, integrated life that can hold both joy and pain without breaking.
That is the kind of life I am seeking. Not a happy life. A whole one.
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